This is the first part of a 3 part story line revealing the circumstances around the death of Iris West. Part 2 is HERE and part 3 is HERE.

The Flash issue 281 – Deadly Games

First of all a little background. Barry went to a fancy dress party with Iris in which he got injected with a massive amount of the drug Angel Dust, and Iris was murdered.

This issue starts with Frank Curtis, a detective friend of Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, calling him from a phone booth claiming to have undeniable proof that Clive Yorkin, a.k.a. Beast-man, didn’t kill Iris.  Anyway, gun shots ring out and the phone goes dead. Frank fights for his life against 2 hitmen whilst Barry tries to work out where he is. The sound of clock chimes gives away the location and the Flash gets there in time to save Frank and get him to hospital.

The next morning Frank’s body has been reported missing, much to the despair of Chief Paulson, Barry and Frank’s boss. Turns out that he was behind the hit! Both Frank and Barry Allen were working on a narcotics case, which the hit seems to be related to. After a conversation with Barry and finding out that Frank is alive but in hiding, Chief Paulson panics, muttering to himself that Mr. Zyx wouldn’t be happy that the hit failed. So he tries to set up another hit. It must be great being police chief.

Frank is hiding out at Barry’s place which isn’t a big surprise. He has found security footage from the Whitlock masquerade party at which Iris was murdered. Obviously Barry is a little reluctant to watch the tape, but it shows what happened. Iris, dressed as Batgirl because it was a fancy dress party, finds Clive Yorkin (a.k.a. Beast-man) prowling the Whitlock house. At first Yorkin seems startled by the Batgirl costume, but then Iris looks behind her, also spotting something. It appears that she is struck, and that whatever is behind her is what Yorkin is watching and terrified by as he doesn’t even watch Iris drop. Yorkin runs off as soon as Barry arrives, dressed as the Flash.

Seeing the tape brings Barry understandably to tears, both at seeing his wife die again and also knowing that her killer is still at large. Barry send’s Frank away whilst he spends the night re-watching the tape. He knows that there is something wrong with it but can’t work out what. In the morning he goes to Iris’s grave and vows to catch her killer. On his way back, the police radio goes off alerting Barry to a shootout. Barry quickly becomes the Flash and dashes to the scene.

Once there he notices something odd, the policemen are being thrown about by an invisible force, well invisible to them but not to the Flash. It is none other than Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash). Four years in the comics since their last encounter. Barry threatens, Zoomy claims boredom and then a fight breaks out. Barry stops the gun fight first, saving the cops before taking on Zoomy.

Then one of the most hilarious fights I’ve read so far happens. Barry leads Zoomy out of town, goes to attack him, grabbing his shoulder and Zoomy literally splits in half. I just can’t even express how silly this is so I’ll just leave you with the picture below.

Anyway, Zoomy leads Barry on a round the world chase which leaves Barry super exhausted and he passes out in the desert. When he awakens, Zoomy is standing over him, having given him a gift whilst he was unconscious; heavy matter boots. These are so dense that Barry can’t vibrate out of them and so heavy that they will keep Barry sinking till he hits the earth’s core. Zoomy gloats as Barry sinks, claiming that being from the future he has seen the history records and knows who killed Iris.

The comic stops there, to be continued next time.

Oh dear….Iris is being objectified yet again….

Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash is secretly being watched by Dr Fate and the Flash of Earth 2 as he tries to find his wife Iris. She’s been missing for two weeks now and so he is off to the 30th century to see if she is with her parents. For those that don’t know, Iris is actually from the 30th century and her real parents are there. Not quite sure why he waited a full 2 weeks, surely it couldn’t of taken him that long to look everywhere else, and plus wouldn’t you check her parents place first??

Anyway, in a sudden telepathic bit of storytelling, Barry knows that Doctor Fate of Earth-2 saw that Earth-1 was doomed and Iris was the cause. He had Jay kidnap her, explain things and after the whole Justice Society tried to sort out her energy fluxes they decided that the only thing they could do is send her to the 30th century in the hopes that they can cure her. Otherwise they need to separate Iris from Barry forever. Barry suddenly understands and stops just before he can grab Iris, knowing now that if he did then the world would fall apart.

However he got a little too close and a huge storm starts, destroying everything. Flash tries to save the day but is failing until Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash), turns up and stops the storm instead. The Flash wants to know what he is doing there and Zoomy confesses that it is because he is going to marry Iris! Flash is understandably pissed off at this and makes threats but Zoomy reminds him that if he doesn’t let his wife go then the world will end.

Zoomy claims that he alone knows the secret of the destruction and how to stop it. Iris has already agreed to marry him in exchange for him keeping the world safe. Barry is quick to point out that she is already married to him, but according to Zoomy that’s just in the 1970’s and 30th century law is different.  I have to confess that my favourite bit is how Zoomy has sewn a wedding outfit for Iris. I’m not sure if it is just future fashion or Zoomy being lusty but it is rather low cut in the chest and short in the skirt with a corseted waist, rather sexy overall for a wedding dress, it isn’t white either.

Anyway, Zoomy explains that when he was last impersonating Barry (see my last review, tag zoomy comics) he implanted the seeds of this energy flux in her and thus this whole thing was inevitable. He was also the one who tipped off Dr Fate. So Zoomy picks up Iris and rushes off to the other side of the planet where a minister and legal documents await to authenticate their marriage.

Suddenly Barry has a eureka moment and realises that Zoomy has been vibrating his hands, something he thought was a distraction, but actually has to do with the whole energy flux thing. Barry rushes after them, grabbing Iris back just as Zoomy is confessing how much he’s been dreaming of marrying Iris. The Flash and Zoomy fight whilst Iris watches. And then in a winning move, Barry throws Zoomy into a cactus! (rofl)

The world is about to end as Barry and Iris reunite, however Barry starts to vibrate his hands in the same way that Zoomy had been and it neutralizes her energy flux. Apparently after a few treatments the effects would be permanent. They turn round and find that Zoomy is gone and so all go home to have a nice family dinner.

(Someone’s desperate to get laid…)

So it starts with Iris nagging Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash about all the chores he’ll have to do that day. They are looking after Stacy, a dead friend’s 18yr old daughter whilst she attends college in Central, giving her a lift to the dentist.

They are half way down the road when a weather warning says that a group of twisters are going to hit the city. Barry speeds out of the car, grabs a mannequin, places it in the road and pretends it’s an injured person. He thus has to stop the car, gets Iris to drive on to find a phone to call for help. Iris is totally wise to his games though.

So the Flash runs off to sort out the twisters, but the third is suspicious and he gets sucked into it. Turns out it is a death trap, set up by none other than Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Professor Zoom/Reverse Flash). Trapped in the tornado the Flash is barraged by cosma-spurs (whatever the frick they are), but they are draining Flash’s stamina. Zoomy explains that cosma-spurs are a new deadly type of energy that was recently discovered in his time. So obviously the first thing he did was travel back 500 years in time to inflict them on the Flash. And it seems that he succeeded as all that is left is the Flash’s burnt out suit with no Barry in sight!

The news reports that the Flash is dead and Iris is understandably upset. That is until he appears at her window, apparently fine. He explains everything that happened and how he vibrated out of his suit to escape. However, when Iris suggests he goes and corrects the news about his death, he says no, claiming that pretending to be dead will smoke out Zoomy. So they spend their day as previously planned, but every time Iris needs picking up, Barry is 20 minutes late. She gets more and more annoyed at him. She snaps at him when he compliments her on her new hair style, claiming that Barry is acting strange and that her hair has been like that for months. So she demands to see his watch, finding it to be at the right time. This annoys her further cause she had worked out that Barry was always 25 mins late and set his watch back that amount to make him on time. This lead to her working out the truth; that this isn’t Barry!

Yes, it is Zoomy, trying to get into Iris’s pants yet again! So as she figured it out, he’s gonna have to kill her. Apparently Zoomy did a mind probe on Barry hence why he knew what their schedule was. Mind powers again…  Iris is confused as to why Zoomy is going to all this trouble and so he explains. Apparently its love, because that is the only thing he can think of as a legitimate reason for wanting to murder Barry and marry Iris which just makes him sound crazy. And it is on those grounds that Iris rejects him again and Zoomy decides to kill her instead. Yeah, true love that is… So he demonstrates how she is going to be sliced to death by him twirling a metal yard stick at speed and cutting up a banana.

But suddenly out of nowhere something strikes him, knocking him out. Iris can sense that it is Barry, even if she can’t see him. Barry then reappears and explains. He vibrated himself into non-solid invisibility, but the radiation from the cosma-spurs was preventing him from becoming solid again. So he followed Iris around in the hopes that he’d be able to save her, which he does. So with a passed out Zoomy on the floor, Barry and Iris make out as Stacy walks in.

This issue starts with the Flash, Barry Allen, debating as to if he should tell his soon to be wife, Iris West, that he is the Flash. And he better make his mind up quickly because the wedding is tomorrow.

The next day we see everyone at the church. Both of Barry’s parents, Al Desmond and his now wife Rita, Iris’s dad who is a professor, Wally West and his parents, the curator of the Flash museum and Daphne Dean, a movie star and childhood friend of Barry’s are all there. Anyway, Barry isn’t late for once and they are just about to start the wedding when the Flash turns up and protests, saying that Iris is marrying the wrong man!

Meanwhile in the future, Zoomy (Eobard Thawne aka Reverse Flash /Professor Zoom) is being held in a cell by radiation. However he has been using that radiation to make himself smarter and enhance his mind powers. Yep, he still has mind powers… And due to those he now knows that Barry is the Flash. Yay for telepathy! So he decides that he is going to switch bodies with the Flash and take his apparently cushy life. He also absorbs all of Barry’s memories as they trade physical places in space-time. Then once in Barry’s house he modifies an electric shaver into a matter distributor to make his face look like Barry’s.

Having taken over Barry’s life and having found his spare Flash ring he dons the uniform and goes out to be a hero. However despite apprehending the criminals he can’t bring himself to put back the loot so runs off with it resolving to sort it out later. He gets back just in time to make it to Barry’s wedding. Apparently he wasn’t planning on getting married but will take it as a perk of the job.

So in the future Barry find himself imprisoned in Zoomy’s place. He can’t get out at first but uses his ring to shrink some of the radiation walls, in the same way it shrinks his suit to weaken it. Once out he has to run beyond the speed of light as that will always snap him back to his own era. Really solid and understandable science there…

So he rushes to the church, stops the wedding and literally just carries Zoomy off, dumping him in a nearby woodland. Barry says that they must fight for Iris and Zoomy concurs, suiting up. However Zoomy brought some tricks from the future and fights dirty. But Barry powers through and after a brief running tour of Central city, he manages to catch Zoomy when he falls in a lake, not yet able to use his speed to walk on water like Barry can. Barry spends a moment wondering what to do with the now unconscious Zoomy.

But it all works out as the future police were watching the whole time and zap him back to them, leaving Barry with his wedding suit. He gets back to the church where no one questions what happened and he finally marries Iris. As they drive off he is still debating if he should tell her or not…